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"Tell me about Sansa."
So Bran told her.
He told her of her wedding to the Imp, who was now Hand of the Queen, and her escape from King's Landing, and the dye she had worn in her hair for years while she played at being Baelish's bastard daughter. He told her of Lysa Tully's murder at the hands of her husband, and Sansa's two year betrothal to Harrold Hardyng before he was poisoned - by whom, no one knew. (Bran suspected Baelish himself.) He told her of a visit to the Eyrie by the Tyrells, who had somehow discovered where Sansa was being kept, and of their plans to whisk her away to marry her off to Willas Tyrell, and her year long betrothal to him. He told her of Sansa's escape in the night with the help of Willas himself, and of her return to Winterfell, black not yet washed from her hair.
"Aegon came to Winterfell a year later to negotiate the North's independence. By that time he and the Dragon Queen had already taken Westeros. The queen was open to the idea of letting us rule ourselves - after all, how could one rule a region one knew nothing about? Anyway, we negotiated the terms, and all was well and good. We would not bother them, nor they us. But I think our prince took a fancy to Sansa when he first saw her. Nothing so special as love, no, but something was there. Jojen had to point it out to me at first, I was so preoccupied with the terms of our independance. Several months passed, and suddenly the prince was back with a request to marry our beloved sister.
"It was apparent from the beginning that signing a piece of parchment was not enough to peacefully align our nations. The dragons did not trust us, nor we them. Some sort of leverage, some incentive was needed to convince us to remain loyal to one another. And when the prince suggested a marriage between our houses - well. I wanted to say no. I did not trust them. I did not want Sansa to become a hostage in King's Landing yet again, nor did she. But Aegon... somehow Aegon convinced her."
He told her of how the High Septon annulled the marriage between Tyrion and Sansa, and how both were gladder for it. He told her of Petyr Baelish sneaking into her room the night before her wedding in order to claim her maidenhead for his own, and of Sansa's scream ringing through the castle in the night and of Rolly Duckfield bursting into her room, sword at the ready. He told her of Baelish's imprisonment in the black cells and of Prince Aegon Targaryen, sixth of his noble name, sentencing him to the executioner's block, and of Sansa's insistence that he behead the man himself, because a man who could not deliver a sentence that he himself had ordered was no man at all.
"I hope he shat himself in fear before he died, the rat."
"I'll be sure to ask the prince of it when next I see him."
* * *
"Leave me, now, or I shall scream," she told him, but he did not believe her.
Petyr Baelish had smiled and traced a finger down her cheek. "Sansa, sweetling - "
She screamed.
Sansa didn't even have time to relish the shock on Baelish's face before Rolly Duckfield burst into her room, sword in hand. He took one look at Baelish sitting on her bed and before Petyr could even blink, Rolly's sword was at his throat.
"Think very carefully about your next move."
Aegon arrived moments after Rolly had escorted Baelish from the room, his glorious silver hair sticking up every which way. "Are you alright?" he asked, breathless. "Did he hurt you?" Sansa bit her lip and noticed that he only wore one boot, the other still in his hand.
"No."
"Oh." He swallowed and nodded, looking around her room, gaze lingering on her rumpled bedsheets. "Good."
"I am sorry to have woken you, my lord."
His lilac eyes were on her in a second. "What? No, it's no - don't apologize, gods, it's not as if - I mean, my lady - "
Sansa smiled, and thought she might actually enjoy her wedding in the morning.
* * *
There was a brief trial the day after the wedding. Sansa could not look at her husband without remembering the night before and feeling her cheeks grow warm and a pleasant ache pulse between her thighs.
Baelish was, of course, found guilty. The trial was a mere courtesy, insisted upon by the Queen. Aegon sentenced him to die in the morning, and Sansa grabbed his arm and whispered in his ear, "You must do it yourself, my lord." His eyes widened in surprise. "It is the way my brother would have done it, and my father, and his father before him, and his father before him. It is the way of the North, my lord."
"And we are in the South," he reminded her.
"The crime was done to a Northerner," she insisted.
Aegon opened his mouth - perhaps to argue that she was not a Northerner, not so long as she was married to him, but something in her gaze stopped him and he shut his mouth moments later. He gave a terse nod. "As you say."
"You cannot become too comfortable in ordering deaths, my lord." Sansa put her hand on his arm. "If you cannot look into the eyes of the man you are sentencing to death and kill him yourself, then the man does not deserve to die. I should do it myself, were I not a woman."
He looked down at her fingers curled around his elbow and put his hand over her own. He looked up, and purple eyes met blue. "As my lady says."
Sansa smiled, and thought she might enjoy her marriage to this silver prince.
* * *
"You are sure?"
"Maester Erreck has confirmed it, my lord."
Aegon pressed the back of his hand to his mouth. His eyes were wide and darted frantically around the room. "Well," he croaked, "That's..."
Sansa reached a hand out to him. "My lord?" A thought struck her and she drew her hand back immediately. "Are you... unhappy?"
"No! No." He laughed and gave a tremulous smile. "No. I'm only... well, surprised."
"Surprised seems a bit of an understatement."
Aegon laughed again and drew her into his arms. "A little princeling." He kissed her brow. "What shall we name him? Or... her, I suppose." He kissed the tip of her nose. "After your father? My father? Our mothers?" He kissed her lips. "Eddard Targaryen." He grimaced and kissed her again. "It does not sound so sweet as Rhaegar Targaryen."
"Rhaegar stole a Northerner and started a war," Sansa said. "I should not like our son to do the same."
Aegon rolled his eyes. "She ran away with him."
"Is that how they tell the story in your family?"
"It's how my aunt tells it. Should you like to oppose the queen?" He let out a theatrical gasp. "To think, I wed a traitor." He did not notice her wince. "Besides, why would our Rhaegar steal a Northerner when he has Northern blood of his own?"
Sansa laughed and thought she might enjoy carrying Aegon's child.
* * *
She woke one night to pain in her belly and red staining the sheets.
No.
Aegon, she tried to say, but no sound made it past her lips. Sansa gasped and shook the arm of her husband beside her. Aegon. Please. Wake. Please, Aegon, I need you. She choked back a sob and shook his arm again.
"Aegon."
He yawned and turned to face her. "Hmm?"
"Aegon, I - "
He bolted upright. "What happened? Sansa? What's happened? Why - why are you bleeding?"
Something in her belly clenched and Sansa cried out in pain. A fresh wave of blood rushed forward to wet the sheets again and she screamed. "Aegon, please - !"
"Yes, yes, of course," he gasped, crawling out of bed. He ran to the door, wrenched it open, and screamed for someone to call the maester.
By the time Maester Erreck arrived, the pain had stopped and the bleeding had subsided to a faint trickle. Sansa's forehead was damp with sweat and her fingertips were numb from how hard Aegon was clutching her hand. She did not weep when the maester told her what she already knew, she would not weep before her prince.
She waited until her prince had been ushered from the room and she was in the bath, her maid sluicing warm water over her head even as she fought back yawns, before she let herself cry.
"It's alright, m'lady," Lia whispered, rinsing the soapy water out of her hair, "It's alright."
"There was so much blood," she gasped, shuddering violently.
"It happens, m'lady. There's nothing can be done."
"He'll hate me."
"Never, m'lady. How could anyone hate you?"
Sansa swallowed a sob and knew if anyone were to hate her, it would be her husband. "He has - every reason to. I - I lost his child." My baby. I lost my baby with blue eyes and silver hair.
"It was your child too," Lia reminded her gently. "No, m'lady. You're not to blame. Sometimes... sometimes the gods see fit to give, and sometimes they see fit to take away. Mayhaps you were not ready for a child, yet."
I was ready for this one. "Rhaegar, we were going to name him. After - "
"His lord grandfather, yes. A fine name, m'lady. Perhaps a name you can give to your next baby."
She dared not voice her next thoughts aloud, for fear they'd come true. What if Aegon won't want to try for another baby?
* * *
Aegon did not come to her bed for many nights after that, which only served to confirm her suspicions. He does not want to try again, not with me. Sansa wondered if he thought her as much of a failure as she did. She wondered if he'd cast her aside in a year or two and take on another, younger, more fertile wife.
Some weeks after the incident, Daenerys pulled Sansa aside to walk with her in the gardens. "You have not been... intimate since the accident?"
Sansa shook her head.
"Why do you think that is?" the queen asked softly, resting her hand on Sansa's arm.
She shook her head again. "I..." She swallowed. "I have failed him. I have one duty as a wife, and I cannot manage even that, it seems."
Daenerys laughed and the sound was like silver bells. "You are capable of much more than birthing babies. Do you think he wed you for your fertility?"
"For what, then? As a wife, I provide a bond between two kingdoms that is easily severed. With a child... that bond is unbreakable."
"Sansa, sweet. You do so much more. You keep peace between the North and the South, yes, and you give him good counsel when he needs it. You contradict him when he needs contradicting and assure him when he needs reassuring. The people love you, and have loved you from the moment you set foot in King's Landing." Daenerys tilted her head to the side, her lips quirked in a queer smile. "A child, yes, a child would not be unhelpful. But you can always try again."
"Then why hasn't he tried again?" Sansa retorted, forgetting, for a moment, that she spoke to a queen - the queen. "He is my lord husband. It is his right, is it not, his duty, is it not?"
"A privilege, I think, that only you can grant him," Daenerys reminded her gently. "My nephew would not come to you were he not sure his advances were welcomed." She stooped to pluck a rose and brought it to her nose to smell. "Would you like to know what I think?"
"Of course, Your Grace."
"I think he does not come to you because he is afraid you do not want him to."
Sansa gaped at the queen. "Why... why would I not want him to?"
Daenerys smiled. "Well, you did lose a child. It is a distressing experience. Most women do not wish to be intimate for a time, after such a loss."
Sansa stopped to consider this. If Aegon had come to her the night after she'd lost her blue eyed, silver-haired baby, would she have welcomed him with open arms (and open legs)? Hardly. She would have been offended that he would even consider such a thing. "But... it has been weeks! I should think now, after so long, he would not still be worried."
"I think perhaps he's waiting for you to let him know you're ready." The queen shrugged. "But what do I know? I have not spoken with him. It is not my place."
"You are the queen, Your Grace. It is your place to do whatever you wish."
Daenerys made a face. "Yes, but to have a discussion such as this with a man? And my nephew, no less?"
Sansa laughed, and thought she might enjoy trying again.
* * *
That night, when Aegon came to her bed, he did not move to remove her nightgown. The prince only curled himself around her and pressed his lips to her hair. "I'm sorry," he whispered, lips brushing the shell of her ear.
"For what?"
"For leaving."
"You did not go anywhere."
"I left your side."
"That's alright."
"You forgive me?"
"Of course."
Aegon sighed and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. "I do not deserve a wife such as you."
Sansa giggled. "No, you don't."
"What sort of wife, then?"
"A old hag."
"Warts and all?"
"Warts and all. And incredibly long nose hairs."
"Eurgh. You are a cruel woman."
She smiled. "Will you make love to me?"
"Not tonight, dear heart."
Sansa scoffed and pressed herself closer to him. "It is you who are cruel."
She felt Aegon's lips curving into a smile against the skin of her shoulder. "Revenge."
"For?"
"The nose hairs."
* * *
She was two months pregnant when the raven came from Winterfell. Sansa screamed when she read the letter and Aegon immediatly rushed out onto the balcony to check on her.
"What happened? Are you alright? Is - is the baby alright?"
She could not speak through her tears so she flapped the letter in his face until he took it.
"I don't... I don't understand," he mumbled, eyes darting across the page, "I thought - everyone thought her to be dead."
"Six years," Sansa gasped. "In Braavos all this time. I had thought - I had hoped - " She darted inside.
"Sansa?"
"Lia! Lia, quick, quick, you must - we have to hurry - oh, two months, two months, that'll take too long!"
"Sansa, darling?" Aegon had followed her inside. "Dear heart, are you - you can't seriously - sweet, you're only two months along."
She whirled on him. "My sister has been missing for six years, and now she has come home, and you wish to deny me the right to see her?" Her breathing was coming hard and fast. "You forget, my lord, that I am a Stark first."
"I only meant..." He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "It's just, the baby, dear heart. Maester Erreck has said, considering what happened... last time... that perhaps travelling to Winterfell might not be... well, very wise."
"Maester Erreck can shove that opinion up his arse, for all I care, I'm going to see my sister." She turned back to her maid. "Lia, pack my things." She did not turn back to Aegon until she heard the door open. "Where are you going?" Had she been too quick to snap at him? He was sweet, her husband, but a dragon also, and fire ran hot in his veins.
"To Maester Erreck," he replied wearily.
"W-why?" What could he be going to Maester Erreck for?
"To see if he has any tonics to supply to keep you strong during the journey."
"Oh." Were those tears pricking at her eyes? Silly Sansa, with your head so full of songs and stories. "Will you come with me, then, my lord?"
He frowned at her as though she was stupid for asking. "Of course."
She could not stop herself from running to embrace him. "You'll tell the queen, then?"
"I'm sure she already knows."
"Not just about Arya. That we're going, I mean."
"That's what I was talking about, sweet." He kissed her forehead. "Will you let me go now?"
"What for?" she murmured against his neck.
"To see the maester, dear heart. You know, I'm beginning to wonder why I married you at all, if you insist on being this dense all the time." But there was laughter in his voice and Sansa batted at his arm.
She kissed him, and thought she might come to love her prince -
- if she didn't already.